Into the Black: Lourd De Veyra’s Kapitan Kulam cometh

Into the Black: Lourd De Veyra’s Kapitan Kulam cometh

by rick olivares

Kapitan Kulam took the stage at Mow’s in support of punk band Betrayed. No lights were flicked on. Not even the light from a cellphone dared shine. As if the light were an affront to their performance.

And as the opening riffs and feedback roared and threatened to break your ear drums, the band rose from the primordial ooze. They cast shadows; maybe like Tolkien’s Ringwraiths come alive. Swaying to the doom and sludge. Raging against the light.

Welcome to Lourd De Veyra’s new band.

If his Radioactive Sago Project was characterized by spoken word satire and poetry to a dangerous jazz beat, Kapitan Kulam is quite the opposite. The songs hardly have words. Instead, the band, like the bastard sons of Black Sabbath, Corrosion of Conformity, and EyeHateGod and dressed in immaculate white – possibly a nod to the droogs of A Clockwork Orange – perform heavy dirge like songs with titles like “Demonyo Death Squad”, “Agimat”, and “Pozo Negro”.

It’s a heavy assault on your senses with emphasis on the word “heavy”. In a time where 1970s terms such as “repapips” and “lodi” are once more in vogue, you just have to trot out the word “heavy” when talking about this band.

Monochrome guitarist Wesley Valenzuela concurs. “The first time I saw Kapitan Kulam, they reminded me of Black Sabbath; except they were a heavier version.”

Added Betrayed guitarist Boyet Miguel, “They’ve got really awesome and emotive instrumental songs.”

For a year or so now, the four-piece band – Kaloy Olavides and De Veyra on guitars, Eric Melendrez on bass, and Jay Gapasin on drums – have pounded rock clubs into submission playing alongside hardcore bands and post-hardcore outfits who had straddled into shoegaze and prog rock territory. Despite the feedback and what sounds like a dozen skulls being pounded on by Gapasin, Kapitan Kulam have mesmerized crowds. And De Veyra can only cackle with glee.

And now, Kapitan Kulam has hit the studio to finish their album for a year end release. According to De Veyra, it will either be on compact disc or vinyl (“nothing wrong with fantasizing about wax,” he says).

While waiting for Kapitan Kulam to release their debut, you might also want to check out the releases of local bands Eyes of Fire whose debut album on cassette, Paperpipe, was released by Sickos Records and Delusion of Terror Records; and Bulacan crew, Jahannam.